Tina Fey casually defines an era of celebrity culture on Bowen Yang’s podcast
Imparting some invaluable career advice on Las Culturistas, Tina Fey tells Bowen Yang, "Authenticity is dangerous and expensive"
Aux News Tina Fey
There’s a certain clip going around the Internet from Tina Fey’s recent appearance on Las Culturistas, the beloved podcast hosted by comedians Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. The long-running show is a platform for Rogers and Yang to observe, criticize, and comment on the pop culture landscape. A recurring segment on the show is “I Don’t Think So, Honey,” which is a 60-second chance to air grievances of all kinds (from “cocaine” to “Rolling Stone snubbing Celine Dion on its best singers list”). When Fey—who is an astute cultural critic herself—got her chance at the mic, she used the moment to impart some wisdom from one Saturday Night Live alum to a current cast member.
“I don’t think so honey, Bowen Yang giving his real opinions about movies on this podcast. I regret to inform you that you are too famous now, sir,” she proclaimed, as the hosts laughed in agreement. “What’s gonna happen? You have a problem with Saltburn? Shhh! Quiet luxury. Keep it to yourself, because what are you gonna do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project where you play Carey Mulligan’s coworker in the bridal section of Harrods, and then act three takes a sexually violent turn and you have to pretend to be surprised by that turn?”
Fey pointed out that Yang hangs out with his Wicked co-stars “Ariana [Grande] and SpongeBob now” and predicted Rogers has “about one year left” before he’s in the same predicament. “Yes, learn from my mistakes. Learn from Ayo, podcasts are forever,” Fey added, referencing an SNL kerfuffle from the week prior. (A resurfaced clip of Ayo Edebiri criticizing Jennifer Lopez forced the host to make a joke at her own expense because J.Lo was the musical guest.) Fey concluded with a beautifully succinct phrase that sums up not only her argument but an entire era of celebrity culture: “Authenticity is dangerous and expensive. I don’t think so, honey!”
As depressing as the sentiment may be, Fey is right: for an up-and-coming star in Hollywood, true authenticity is a risk. Though Yang cultivated his platform by sharing his genuine thoughts and feelings about pop culture on the podcast, he’s on the cusp of a new level of celebrity where people are paying much closer attention. In recent weeks, he’s made headlines for perceived reactions to Dave Chappelle and Nikki Haley on SNL; in the latter case, he quickly deleted the Haley-critical post on his Instagram after it gained traction (including from this website).
In a certain sense, Fey’s advice is classic mentor-mentee stuff. Be careful what you say and who you say it to in a professional setting, because you don’t know how it might affect you later. But in the realm of celebrity, it’s increasingly sanding down the interesting edges of Hollywood. Artists who used to cultivate their personas with unique perspectives now seem desperate to avoid saying anything of substance. Your mileage on “cancel culture” may vary, but we can see in the way celebrities discuss the subject that the fear of being canceled for saying the wrong thing is very real, and it affects the way they behave, at least publicly.
Interestingly, Fey seems established enough that she doesn’t need to follow her own advice, including a playful joke about Emerald Fennell in her warning to Bowen Yang to be polite to Emerald Fennell. While his burgeoning fame presumably can’t afford any measure of scandal, Fey’s comfortable status in the entertainment industry can withstand it. It can be assumed, then, that a certain amount of time, effort, and success earns an entertainer a degree of authenticity. Still, in this day and age, opacity pays off at every level (the biggest celebrity in the world is a pop star who has largely kept her thoughts and beliefs private for most of her career). While putting a barrier between oneself and the public may protect a celebrity’s best interests, it’s a loss for the rest of us, who see fewer and fewer authentically outspoken artists reflecting the good, bad, and ugly of life back to us.
110 Comments
This is the woman who responded to racial insensitivity accusations in one of her shows by basically saying, as another performatively controversial comedian once put it, “I can’t understand you, go back to your country, white power.”
It’s crazy how willing people like you are to lie about things/people to support your bizarre world view. “Waaaa Tina Fey didn’t want to engage with a bunch of stupid activists who got mad about jokes on a TV show. 10 years later I’m still talking about this in a comment section.” Fucking pathetic.
BALD AND BRAVE
“basically saying”
Those two words might be doing the heaviest lifting I’ve ever seen in a sentence
If you’re going to criticize the things a person said, it’s fairer to actually include what they said, not to make up a thing they “basically said” that includes the words “white power.”What sketch are you talking about? Why is it supposedly offensive? What did Fey actually say about it?
Tina Fey’s response to said racial insensitivity accusations, in a note to the network asking them to pull the episodes in question: “I understand now that ‘intent’ is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologize for pain they have caused. Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness. I thank NBC Universal for honoring this request”I’m literally begging you to stop using Twitter.
George Floyd’s death was horrific, and worthy of a serious response. But are we far enough from 2020 to acknowledge that a lot of the stuff done in the wake of his death was . . . pretty stupid? Has anyone been helped because we no longer can see funny episodes of 30 Rock and maybe the funniest episode of Community? Is this something black people in any significant number even wanted?
A lot of the stuff done in the wake of his death was superfluous and performative. Fey, for her part, came from a place of genuine contrition, which is a healthy way for any artist to grow. It’s not her fault JP Morgan didn’t follow through on their $60 billion racial equity pledge, for example.
Fey’s statement reads like one of those things a P.O.W. is videotaped saying while trying to blink a message to his wife in Morse code.
I’d guess that the stuff the commenter is referring to is less the 30 Rock blackface than the jokes in Kimmy Schmidt . People complained about the Asian boyfriend on that show being named Wang and Jane Krakowski’s character being a secret Native American who disguised herself to fit in with white people. Then, in the second season, Fey wrote a whole episode basically mocking anyone who complained.(For the record, I think the second joke was pointed and funny while the first joke was stupid and lame. That’s just me)That being said, I would say that that experience is exactly the type of experience that would cause Fey to give this kind of advice. Although, to be clear, she is specifically talking here about Yang reviewing movies ie. giving his uncensored opinions on the work of people he may work with in the future. I don’t think this really has anything to do with racist jokes.
The community “black face” thing was so over the top ridiculous. I thought removing the Always Sunny episodes was dumb, but you could at least understand the complaint. Fey I think actually asked for the 30 Rock episodes to be removed, so that’s slightly different. I wish they’d taken the effort to just like, edit out the scenes and add title cards explaining. There were a lot of really funny non-blackface related jokes that most people won’t see now.
“Fey I think actually asked for the 30 Rock episodes to be removed, so that’s slightly different.”There’s no way she actually wanted it removed. She was just trying to get in the backlash.
I dunno some of it was pretty cringe (two black swans!) as someone who has done things and then later found them to be embarrassing and wished I could take them back, I can imagine Fey wanting them removed. It could be what you said too, and I don’t really know much about her beyond that she can be very very funny. I don’t know why that is shot like a bootleg. Also it’s a shame it’s missing the end credits song.
When it comes to the intent-impact dichotomy, I disagree with the idea that impact is always more objective than intent. To me that implies that people have no control over their emotions, and therefore any pain someone feels over jokes that offend them justifies depriving other people of those jokes.
I was just watching a great doc about that NXIVM cult. Leader of the cult created a whole ideology around the idea that victimhood is performative because people should just choose not to feel bad emotions, swindling thousands of people so he could coerce dozens of women into having sex with him and brand them with his initials through a pyramid-shaped human trafficking scheme.No idea why that came to mind.
And that’s comparable to what I said?
It’s just an effort to link you unreasonably to a group we all despise, so your argument can be dismissed.And you know who argued in bad faith like that? The NAZIS!
No one, absolutely no one, here is suggesting that you can simply choose to not feel bad emotions, when it come to things that are actually important. If your mom dies, I’m happy to trust that there’s nothing performative about your grief.But you absolutely can decide about certain things, “I’m just not going to be angry about this.” I suspect you do this every day. Otherwise, you’d be constantly shrieking at everyone who is less than courteous to you on the road.One of the ways we do this is by not automatically assuming the worst of people. Maybe the guy who cut you off in traffic didn’t see you, or maybe he truly did think there was room for him to pull in. But this whole principle of ignoring intent basically insists that we not do that. Instead, we are supposed to completely ignore that people may have done things we dislike for understandable or justifiable reasons.
One of the ways we do this is by not automatically assuming the worst of people. Maybe the guy who cut you off in traffic didn’t see you, or maybe he truly did think there was room for him to pull in. But this whole principle of ignoring intent basically insists that we not do that. Instead, we are supposed to completely ignore that people may have done things we dislike for understandable or justifiable reasons.Man, thank you. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I feel like sometimes people respond like that makes me a naive moron. I remember reading a reddit post about a landscaper whose co-worker hit some metal and the saw bounced back and cut into his leg. They were rushing him to the hospital speeding and some cunts felt the need to pull in front of them and tap the breaks so these “speed demons” would have to slow down. The guy probably would have bleed out anyway, but he died. I forget who it was that said we tend to judge others by their actions while insisting that we should be judged by our intentions.
Thanks. It’s also worth noting that the people who argue that intent doesn’t matter apply that selectively, only when it can be a tool to tell people other than themselves to shut up.Take for example, the issue of Gaza. I doubt that many of the people eager to say that 30 Rock is racist would say that Israelis should get unilateral authority to determine if pro-Palestinian speech is anti-Semitic. In that case, they wouldn’t say, “Well, intent doesn’t matter, and my speech has the effect of making some Israelis feel hurt, so I guess I have to apologize.”Or take conservative Christians. Like some of the anti-racism activists, conservative Christians have a tendency to see bigotry against them everywhere. But no one’s saying we should give those people the right to decide on their own what things offend them, and that we’re wrong by default if we disagree.
If someone is potentially bleeding out, call 911. The paramedics can start treatment on the way to the hospital, and people are more apt to pull over for the ambulance with lights and sirens going than some random car. I’ll give these people the benefit of the doubt for making a bad choice in a moment of extreme stress, but it was a really bad choice.
as I recall they had called 911, and were meeting the ambulance because they were in a remote area.
You used the word “pain.” We can’t choose the level of pain we feel. Who are you to determine what’s “actually important” for someone else? Speaking generally.Now, I don’t think any Black person is watching 30 Rock and going on a crusade to get those episodes taken down. I think plenty of Black folks watch it and feel alienated and then go on with their day – but enjoy the show they’re watching a bit less because of it. I’m confident people made too big of a deal of this on Twitter, but any conversation that uses social data from Twitter without being explicitly about Twitter is hopelessly skewed.
I agree. I’m also very skeptical of the supposed “impact” when it comes to things like that. I doubt anyone was actually offended by any of the stuff in 30 Rock, as opposed to a very small group of the professionally aggrieved seeing an opportunity to raise a fuss.
Know who else said that? HITLER!
“I’m literally begging you to stop using Twitter.”Wiser words have never been spoken.
you’re an imbecile. Fey pulled those episodes of 30 Rock because she didn’t want them to be held against Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski. Knowing they would be because people are too dumb to understand satire.
Lmao what a lying sack of shit you are
THIS is the essence of ‘cancel culture.’ It’s not the metric of whether someone ACTUALLY suffers, or ACTUALLY disappears penniless. That is the aspiration. The culture of THAT ASPIRATION is the ‘culture’ of ‘cancel.’ No matter how much time passes, no matter the setting, if you see a mention of an enemy, insert your own twist of the narrative that paints them in a disparaging light, so the conversation shifts from whatever is the matter at hand to your characterization, the details, the propriety, . . . yada, yada, yada, . . . all attention is now PROPERLY focused on your own sense of moral outrage, the true proper situs of every social interaction.
You’re 100% correct with this.
“While putting a barrier between oneself and the public may protect a
celebrity’s best interests, it’s a loss for the rest of us, who see
fewer and fewer authentically outspoken artists reflecting the good,
bad, and ugly of life back to us.”I too am looking forward with hope to a time when there are fewer clickbait articles and Xtacles about who said what about a thing.
Hey, without this dross, how will the writers here put food on the table?
I guess someone has to write dross or else how would you know what the good stuff is?
Good stuff’s byline lists Nathan Rabin, Sean O’Neill, Emily VanDerWerff, etc.
I wish there were more Xtacles! Boosh!
“A resurfaced clip of Ayo Edebiri criticizing Jennifer Lopez forced the host to make a joke at her own expense because J.Lo was the musical guest.”What a terrible price to pay. This will certainly have a chilling effect on JLo discourse going forward.
I have thoughts about J-Lo’s rear end I am now afraid to say, and the world is poorer for it.
the other problem, and something that i’m not sure i even possess the language to explain, is that we’re in a bit of a ‘crisis of opinion’.the ‘opinion industrial complex’ (podcasts, youtube, tiktok, twitter, substack, etc) has made having an opinion big business. as a result, i feel like people are going out of their way to have ‘interesting opinions’. i’m not exactly talking about contrarianism, but when your literal job is having an opinion you need to go out of your way to have it.i see this a lot with podcasts in particular. it’s not that people don’t have takes, but if you’re FORCED to, day after day, because of a self-imposed job…i dunno, i have a hard time taking almost ANYONE’S opinion seriously these days because, frankly, they’re incentivized to have it.it’s starting to feel like there’s a huge disconnect between the thing being criticized and the criticism itself. and the criticism is turning into bigger business than the thing being criticized. again, i’m not entirely sure i know how to express this opinion myself (irony) but it’s a feeling i’ve had for a while.this is kind of aside from yang and this instance specifically, but related enough to ramble on it.
i think i can sum it up as:what are we doing when we’re talking about a writer’s opinion about tina fey’s opinion about bowen yang’s opinion about a movie? we’re 5 levels removed from the actual thing.
Inceptiopinion.
I’ve been kind of having these thoughts since I quit Twitter (I’m not calling it X). We’re at a point in culture where engagement is being forced no matter your status. What if I am neutral on a certain subject? What does my opinion add to the discussion? Why do I have to vomit out my thoughts on everything on a constant basis?
It all comes down to we are not in the internet/social media age. Everything you say now lives online forever the good and the bad. Say something insensitive and mean as a teen, that can come back to bit you in the ass 30 years later. And also everyone seems to think that everyone needs to hear what they say. I remember when Twitter first started I thought it was stupid, still do, I have no desire to hear some rando celebrities’, or just regular rando, opinion on everything. there is some strange need or desire to share everything online, and I just don’t get it, part of that is I am an old lol. I mean I have Twitter, I have Facebook and IG, I can count on one hand the number of things I have EVER posted on them combined. But I am also in an in between place, like I am in my 40’s so I grew up pre social media/internet. My mom is in her 70’s and she was never really on Facebook, like she had one, but never really used it. Now she has become the Facebook mom/grandma that run the kids off of Facebook. She posts stull all the time, which is exactly what she used to get on her husband for when they got married some 5 or so years ago. It’s almost like everyone MUST have an opinion on everything, and no matter what it is, you are wrong. Say you like hamburgers, well why do you HATE hotdogs you horrible asshole lol.
Neutrality is complicity, so you better pick the side people will be least mad at you for picking!
Apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime.
This is a Bo Burnham song without the jokes or self-loathing.
And remember, Gray: there’s only two positions. If you don’t loudly support one position, then you 100% whole-heartedly, full-tilt support the opposite one.
I find calling it “Xitter” (pronounced “shitter,” using the pronunciation of x in Anglicized Chinese words) is the best way forward and surprisingly very accurate as a moniker.
I also refuse to call Twitter X. I am glad we have both taken up this righteous cause.
Both my father and father-in-law, who consider themselves enlightened, well-read liberals, regularly listen to this dweeb’s podcast: And, like, he’s fine. I agree with the large majority of what he says, but in the many hours I’ve been forced to overhear him I don’t think he’s said anything remotely insightful. He’s just some dude with a B.A. in communications who confidently tells vaguely left-wing types what they want to hear. Ad nauseam. Literally just the left-wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. I just want to ask my dad: what are you getting out of this? Do you feel more informed after listening? Are you particularly amused or entertained by someone spitting out takes on shit you already read about in the morning paper? It’s maddening.
My parents do the same thing with MSNBC and shit, I tell them that this is part of the problem and they agree, then go back to watching it.But they’ve been yelling at the TV about politics for longer than I’ve been alive so it’s not behavior that I think is going to change. At least they’re not Trumpers…
I watched this guy on youtube. You’re right he doesn’t do anything amazing, he just tells the truth and exposes crazy right wing lies which is not insightful.. it’s easy. Like the crazies who call in and say the economy is in the crapper, then another caller giving credit to the great economy to Trump. It’s so easy to shoot these crazy people down.
well the routine aspect is a huge part of it!i find myself sometimes realizing i’ve been mad a podcast i’ve been listening to for weeks, but it’s just ‘the one i listen to on wednesday’. i try to marie kondo my digital shit every once in a while but it’s so easy to just get lost in the sauce.
In other words, it’s just WAKA WAKA WAKA
Here I am just wishing my Dad listen to this dude. lol
100%, and I hope this becomes the top comment thread for this article, because what you’re saying is actually interesting.
There’s been some talk about this around the war in Gaza. A lot of the bad takes that emerged early on (and continue to emerge) are the result of folks feeling like they have to weigh in, even if they don’t know what they’re talking about.
it’s like…i’m just a regular guy! if you wanna ask me and have a conversation about it that’s one thing, but i use the internet to post dumb jokes and goofs. that’s ‘the internet’ to me. i don’t have a ‘platform’ i’m just a dude.
it’s the perfect companion to the outrage industry. and then when you add engagement (in comment sections, annoying ‘response’ videos), it becomes a spicy throuple.
I’ve been wondering whether my opinions have enough value (whether informative or entertaining) to sustain a podcast. This article nudged me closer to doing it because a) I truly don’t care whether it would make any money or not; b) I have no famous friends or relatives whose feelings I might hurt; and c) I’m not really interested in *interviewing* anyone, famous or not. I try to be thorough and thoughtful, so combining that with sincerely not giving a fuck might enable me to fill some small niche in the ecosystem.Nothing radical, mind you. I’m not a Breatharian or a Nazi or anything. I just enjoy going up to the pub and arguing about religion, politics, Marvel vs. DC, and other controversial topics most people are taught to avoid in the company of strangers. Yesterday, for instance, I upset some people on Reddit by suggesting that AI could conceivably make traditional economics and capitalism obsolete. A surprising number of people are verrrry uncomfortable by the thought of everyone having their Maslow needs met without having to fret about money. (An attitude that could be summarized by the statement, “Life’s been hard for me; therefore life should be at least as hard for everyone else.”)
Fucking reaction videos. It was charming the first couple times I saw people ‘reacting’ to cool things on Youtube. Now it’s a genre and I hate it. (Sometimes it comes with expert analysis and a pathway to learning something new and interesting, but that seems the exception rather than the norm.)
We live in very different bubbles. I had never seen a reaction video until I got sucked into an online card battle game, like sucked into it where I was using Twitch form the first time (to watch streamers play it).Since I kicked that little addiction I’m back to never being presented with a reaction video to anything.
When I was in junior high I was on the school newspaper and in charge of reviewing movies and I hated every minute of it. It was the first time in my life I realized most movies are just “meh” and not really worthy having a positive or negative opinion about it. Yeah you can give a movie a C but you have to explain why it’s a C and being negative is just so much easier than just saying “this movie wasn’t for me.”
Bo Burnham said it all
Fifty percent of AV Club posts must now reference Bowen Yang, for some reason. Getting weirder, y’all.
I’d be happy with 100% tbh.
The BY Club
Your comment references Bowen Yang, so you may live. But know that they’ve got their eye on you.
I’m getting mine out of the way now. Bowen Yang! Bowen Yang! Bowen Yang!There. That should cover me for the rest of the month.
Rest of the week, maybe. But only because it’s Friday.
Meanwhile there are New York Times think-pieces on Renee Rapp and her alleged antipathy toward media training and her alleged “authenticity” gained by being snarky and disdainful when doing pressers for her latest (Tina Fey bankrolled) movie…
Looking forward to the usual suspects pissing their pants here about a benign joke Tina made a decade ago being insufficiently deferent to their political views.Totally normal adult behavior.
BALD AND BRAVE
LOL at the bald troll crying about adult behavior. SNL will be calling any day!
Oh hell yes. Fey has always been extremely pop culture savvy and now the zeitgeist gives her an upswing. Lovely stuff.
Fey pointed out that Yang hangs out with his Wicked co-stars “Ariana [Grande] and SpongeBob now”SpongeBob is in Wicked?
She’s referring to Ethan Slater, who played Spongebob in the Broadway musical.
Jesus, there’s a SpongeBob Musical?
yeah and it ruled. Shame it couldn’t survive Covid, since it was really an excellent show. Squidward does a tap dance number and the actor had to put taps on his prosthetic tentacles and time everything perfectly – truly one of the more impressive live musical numbers I’ve seen
You can stream it on Paramount+. I watched it for Squidward’s big solo song by They Might Be Giants and was glad to see the whole thing.For anyone who doesn’t know the songs are by various musicians like Jonathan Coulton, Sara Bareilles, Flaming Lips, Cyndi Lauper, and John Legend.
And a Shrek musical!
Hey, Mean Girls became a musical then a movie based on that musical! 90s
They make musicals out of everything.And to much greater effect than you’d ever guess. The School of Rock musical was fantastic, and I’d have recommended the Broadway show to anyone.Never saw SpongeBob.
I can confidently state that Bowen Yang—theleast funny current regular on SNL—does not need to worry this much about his future career prospects.
I mean its modern SNL, that is a real race to the bottom there
I like how confident you are at being wrong. Have you seen him in Fire Island? Or Dicks? Also he’s in the biggest movie musical in decades, Wicked, so I think his career is doing better than yours.
He’s got a bright future starring in gay shit that no one would ever watch.
He will be the first call anytime Hollywood needs his classic character “gay Chinese guy.”
you really don’t have your finger on the pulse
I think Yang is really funny, and I say that as someone who isn’t thrilled that he also seems to act as a self-appointed regulator of comedy.
Bowen Yang is not less funny than the guys who are only on Saturday Night Live because their dads were unfunny writers on Saturday Night Live.
He typed, during a slow period at the drive thru window
Possibly the largest example of this phenomena is Shane Gillis, who lost his initial SNL slot due to jokes on a podcast. Both he and Ayo have gone on to be asked to host SNL though so maybe it’s not as dire as Fey makes it out to be
As depressing as the sentiment may be, Fey is right: for an up-and-coming star in Hollywood, true authenticity is a risk.
On one hand, studios obviously prefer low to zero risk in making shows, so working with people that won’t cause problems is the ideal.
On the other hand, if your authenticity isn’t nice to people in your industry then you fuck around and find out.
this was a classic ‘I don’t think so honey’ but it so strange to read about it on a website, lol.
Years and years ago, Tina Fey was on Howard Stern and he was asking about when Paris Hilton had hosted (2005), looking for dirt. Tina hilariously mocked Hilton’s whole “So proud of being dumb!” schtick that was so prevalent back then. She talked some shit that everyone agreed with and made the offhand comment “she looks like a trannie – her feet are like 13″ long,” back when that word was common usage.Years later, that remark was dug up by some annoying, uber-sensitives and she got a lot of retroactive crap about it and she quipped that going forward she would only say “what Tom Hanks would say” in interviews.She was warning them. And she is the absolute best.
Honestly, I find her the absolute worse. She’s never made me laugh and the “trannie” joke is a good example of how lazy and childish her “humor” is. Another example is her endless Sarah Palin bits which had no other ponts but: “we are both hot” and “I can imitate meaningless mannerisms.” She’s almost as unfunny as that guy who killed the cinematographer.
So we have a conservo-troll in the comments saying that the woman killed by an alt-reich sleeze “had it coming”?
Hollywood’s “interesting edges” have always been sanded down. Social media briefly sharpened those edges, when it looked like celebrities could be “authentic” with their fans, but everyone quickly figured out how social media presences for A-list celebrities are just as phony (and kind of need to be) as any morning show interview. Please don’t contribute to this myth that the public never got upset at something a celebrity did or said in public that was offensive or taboo until Twitter came along.
There’s an entire canyon of difference between criticizing Saltburn or disliking Jennifer Lopez for whatever reasons Edebiri had, and speaking up about the bigotry that Chapelle and Haley propagate. The former you can maybe file under poor professional discretion, the latter is advocating for civil rights.
That’s one big difference. There’s also the difference in their personal connections to the story. Ayo Edebiri criticized Jennifer Lopez without knowing her, without working with her, maybe without ever even being in the same room as her… it was just a random joke. Bowen Yang is facing heat for talking about paid (and also unpaid?) guests at his own workplace. At one point, his own employer said that “everyone” was happy to see the bigots on screen, and he merely affirmed the word “everyone” with a smiley face. (Obviously sarcasm, but there were no negative words spoken.) He’s talking about his own feelings and his own life experience. I think that matters here. Tina Fey is suggesting that people keep quiet even when the matter at hand is their own life.
Good point!
CLICKBAIT SITE: ‘WE WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH TINA FEY THAT CLICKBAIT CULTURE HAS RUINED CULTURAL DIALOGUE!’ NEXT UP: ‘LOOK AT WHAT PRIVILEGED WHITE LADY AMY SCHUMER SAID IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT WILL GET YOUR BLOOD BOILING!’
Adore the irony of this site bemoaning celebs and media people being too cowardly to be authentic or tackle certain subjects (see also the Avatar article about the side character being rewritten to remove his sexism), when it is this very site – this one! – that has gleefully taken part in pile-ons and clickbait takedowns and promoted the very kind of merciless, disingenuous cancel bullshit that makes people so worried about being cancelled in the first place.
Oh god, this: “Artists who used to cultivate their personas with unique perspectives now seem desperate to avoid saying anything of substance.”JFC, we are living in the absolute golden age of celebrity opinions. Never in the history of man has there been such an endless bounty of celebrity perspective to consume, nor anything approaching as many ways to consume them.Compare this to any time in the past when, say, movie stars were heavily shielded and managed by studios. You would never get one dashing off a “ever notice how many Hollywood execs are named Goldman?” that was just immediately in front of 100s of millions of eyeballs.I’m not even sure what you think you’re saying here. The most literal reading I can come up with is some sort of mild anti-cancel culture/pro-FIRE take, but I doubt that’s what you were going for.